Nervousness, embarrassment and even insomnia are familiar problems for many test-takers and public speakers. Severe anxiety associated with learning a foreign language can become overwhelming for even the most well-prepared students and professionals, one UT professor says.
Foreign language professor Elaine Horwitz's research found that foreign language anxiety can lead to hesitancy to practice the language, missed classes and lower grades. She found that while students may feel confident in their comprehension of vocabulary and grammar, they often freeze when required to speak spontaneously.
While some programs vary, most UT undergraduate degree programs require foreign language proficiency. Horwitz said students majoring in foreign languages typically do not experience foreign language anxiety.
She said unrealistic expectations about the level of fluency expected in class might unnecessarily worry many students struggling to complete their foreign language degree requirements.
"You're in your third semester, and you're saying, 'There's no way one more semester is going to finish me,'" Horwitz said. "But it really takes years of effort to speak a second language anywhere near as well as you speak your first language."
Rosemary G. Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Association, said that while one's personality and learning style translate into different strengths in the classroom, study habits are also an important factor in a student's performance.
"If you have a perfectionist student, the kind who always has to get an A in every course, well, that student is going to find a way to get an A in Spanish," Feal said. "Similarly, students who are generally mediocre students in language classes, unless they do the work, [are] going to get a mediocre grade."
Horwitz questions the popular notion that the ideal time to learn a foreign language is during childhood.
"You've got university students generally feeling that they're studying a language but they've really missed the time when they should have learned the language," Horwitz said. "Actually, the research on children is much more varied."
Horwitz said foreign language anxiety can be particularly damaging to international students and immigrants who might tend to use their native language even if they have some English proficiency.
When a mistake in the classroom can be interpreted as failure by a nervous student, Thomas Linker, an ESL instructor at Austin Area Interreligious Ministries, said prior negative experiences can lead to anxiety when practicing a foreign language.
"The way that you correct people has a lot to do with whether they process the correction as useful information or just as an attack on them while they're in the act of speaking," Linker said. "The principle rule when learning a language is to try to make as many mistakes as you can so you can find out what they are."
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